Crown Equipment Corp. is putting a new economy spin on an old-economy industry. Already one of the leading lift truck manufacturers in the world, Crown wants to be the industry leader in application of fuel cell technology.
The New Bremen-based Crown began making lift trucks in the late 1950s. Today, the company, with 8,000 employees worldwide, is considered the seventh largest lift truck manufacturer, with 16 manufacturing sites around the world.
Eric Jensen, manager new technology research and development, says fuel cells make perfect sense for customers, who must now recharge lift truck batteries an average of every eight hours.
"Batteries have six to 10 hours of runtime," he says. "Some of our customers have three batteries for each vehicle -- one is in the vehicle, one is cooling and one is being recharged. To change a battery, it can take 20 to 30 minutes," during which time the vehicle is out of service and an employee is tied up with maintenance. Translation: lost productivity.
The hydrogen fuel cells now being applied to lift-trucks do everything a battery does, but can be refueled much more quickly using a hose from a tank, Jensen says.
In 2008, a $977,000 Ohio Third Frontier grant helped Crown with the first phase of a project to study the technical and commercial barriers to the application of fuel cells in Crown lift trucks. A subsequent $1-million grant will allow the company to begin researching the integration of fuel cells into the manufacture of its vehicles, Jensen says.
While qualification will continue over the next several years at the company's Huber Height's research center, the company already has delivered two initial shipments of its fuel cell-equipped vehicles -- one to a grocery chain in Texas and one to the U.S. Air Force in Georgia. Future shipments are planned to a grocery chain in Pennsylvania.
Source: Eric Jensen, Crown Equipment Corp.
Writer: Gene Monteith